Dropping

We think the baby dropped sometime yesterday or the day before. Xy is feeling a lot better and seems to have a lot more energy.

Speaking of dropping, perhaps it’s time to drop the pretense that we’re keeping the child’s sex a secret.

See, four or five months ago Xy asked me if we should opt to discover the child’s sex in advance. I said, “Let’s find out but keep it a secret.” I thought that would give us something to announce when the child was actually born.

And so, back in October, I got a one-word text message from Xy informing me of the child’s gender. I wrote that I knew something you didn’t. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to me, Xy was calling and/or texting most everyone she knew.

This led to the awkward situation of her parents knowing something that my parents didn’t. My parents were content to wait until March, since that seemed to be our wish. But in reality Xy had told half the population of the United States. Soon I started telling people when it came up in conversation. Eventually I had to call my parents on the phone and fill them in. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, after all. They should not be the last to know.

I’m still not publishing this factoid on the internet. To any who remain curious, I offer the following hint. We’ve been astonished by the blatantly sexist responses of some people when we tell them. Are you disappointed? Are you gonna try again? People are a trip.

My grandparents gave me the end of my brother’s bar mitzvah challah bread shortly after I was married. They insisted on it. When they were asked why, the response had me nearly spitting out the “shpitz”: “So she’ll have a boy!”

I am now quite deferential to the middle of a challah.

Mazel tov to you guys, no matter what the sex of your child is. Any sort of -ism imposed on your child before birth (and any of ‘em imposed afterwards) is bullshit. Chazzerai, as my grandparents would say.

We were told we were having a boy but wound up with a girl! We were surprised, but never disappointed. And after watching both boys and girls, I can honestly say that I am so glad to not have a boy (and that feeling will likely shift when she’s 12 or so).

Ha ! That’s great! Someone told me this horrible joke. When you have a boy you worry about 1 zipper when you have a girl you worry about every zipper in the world! That’s really tasteless. Girls are tops!

I like how everyone automatically assumes it’s a girl! That’s sexist isn’t it?

I had plenty of sexist comments made to me when I was pregnant with Julian. A lot of my friends are women or sensitive, nerdy men so for many of them, having a girl was preferable. Girls seem to be the sensitive person’s choice. People assume that all boys are little monsters with ADHD, little balls of testosterone tearing up everything in their paths.

Several people actually said to me that they only want children if they could ensure it would be girl. A few people said, “I don’t like boys.” It doesn’t get less sugar-coated than that.